CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter explains background of the research, statement of problem,

research objective, research significance, definition of key terms and organization

of writing.

1.1 Background of the Research

The use of language in all modes of text and all forms of communication is

varied one to another. The features of language which are used are also diverse

depending on the purpose of the text. However, whatever the forms of language

use in communication are known consisting of many, there are one thing that is

important to consider. It is the aspect of meaning. In language use, specifically in

linguistic domain, the study of meaning is called Semantics.

However, Semantics, even though speaks about meaning, it describes very

wide concept since meaning not only focused on one point, but also many things

to observe. Therefore, it is considerably important to study word meaning first

before stepping onward to the advanced subjects since word and its meaning are

influencing in language use. One Semantics branch which deals with the word

meaning is called Lexical Relations.

Lexical relation is one of the Semantics subjects which are focused on the

relationship of one word meaning to another (2003, p. 4). One of the most

significant studies about Lexical Relation itself is Antonymy. The definition of

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Antonymy in general is the opposition of meaning between two words, which

eventually makes it in pair. Thus, the words recognized as opposite is called

Antonyms (1981, p. 78). However, although the definition of Antonymy can be

understood in a simple way as that, the concept of this study is somewhat vague,

because people could hardly know about the “exact” contrasted word pair to one

another or onne word that has multiple same kind of opposite. This research is

done in order to answer that question. Furthermore, the settlement of this question

could be useful to enrich people’s vocabulary and knowledge regarding word’s

opposite pair and also the limitation of the implementation. In that case, Palmer

stated that Antonymy is categorized into three types, which are Gradable

Antonymy, Complementary Antonymy, and Relational Opposite (1981, p. 79).

Since Antonymy has become something familiar and common in language

use, indeed that the use and implementation of Antonymy can be seen throughout

many aspect of people’s life, whether that is in spoken or written form, including

literary works like movies, songs, novels, and many more as long there are words,

phrases, and sentences do exist. One of the literary work which seems worthwhile

to analyze in this case is webtoon.

Webtoon is a composite word of “Web” and “Cartoon”. With remarkable

progress of cutting-edge information communication technology, the concept of

Webtoon became much more popularized such as “Digital cartoon”, “Online

cartoon”, “Internet cartoon”, and “Mobile cartoon”. Then, Webtoon extends its

impact not only the simple webpage view but sensual idea and story contents with

vitality as well. What can be inferred from that crossed-idea is that Webtoon had

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sorts of conversation, dialogues or words as well to present the story. Thereafter,

it could be one research object to be analyzed semantically, especially in aspect of

Antonymy study to find its example.

From that point, the writer interested to analyze a work entitled “Orange

Marmalade”, one of the comics title provided by Line Webtoon in 2015. The

writer is extracted to study the research entiled The Analysis of Antonymy Types in

‘Orange Marmalade’ Webtoon. Here the writer intended to try discovering

examples of Antonymy among dialogues or conversations between characters

emerged inside. By all means, this kind of study has been done by some

researchers but indeed there are several distinction occured by what the writer

had.

However, the writer would like to note that although Antonymy is

something familiar and mostly known by people in common beside Synonymy.

The further study of this one type of Lexical Relation has been done only by a few

researchers. Previous study related to Antonymy has been written by Mai (2011)

who analyzed the antonymous expressions in Reading Passages of TOEFL IBT.

The second study is journal from Gao (2014) about antonymy in english texts,

such as poetry, drama, novels, speeches, and proverbs. The last one is research

paper has been written by Jones (2015) about Antonym Co-occurence in Spoken

English.

All of researches above disposed the same domain spesifically about

Antonymy Study. However, there are several precise distinctions and yet

similarities as the writer mentioned beforehand between this research and all of

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the previous ones. The first difference can be seen from the research subject. In

this paper, the writer is not only explaining about examples of Antonymy found in

the research object (webtoon), but also categorizing all of the findings into its

precise group. Thus, the study of this research also held by using the different

theory of Antonymy than the other else, which is Frank Palmer’s theory from his

book entitled “Semantics”, while mainly several researchers before was

conducting this research by practicing Lyonn’s theory. Then, the writer also

described the meaning of the findings and answered how the discovered words

could be mentioned as Antonymy and got it in pair at once. The second difference

can be viewed from the particular research object (data). The research object in all

of the previous studies above are English texts, and also spoken English.

Nevertheless, the writer, in this research, interested to inspect the other genre of

literary work, which is Webtoon.

1.2 Statement of Problem

One thing that has always been the concern according to the research

background above is that people are not aware of what actually Antonymy is.

Therefore, there are so many Antonymy implementation in language, one of them

is in Webtoon. Due to that concern and the object as the main study in this paper,

there are problems to solve formulated in the following question:

1. What types of Antonymy are found in “Orange Marmalade” webtoon?

2. How are the pairs of Antonym can be contrasted to each other based on the

story?

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1.3 Research Objective

As what has stated in statement of problems above, the objectives of this

research are considered as follow:

1. To identify types of Antonymy found in “Orange Marmalade” Webtoon.

2. To understand how the pairs of Antonym can be contrasted by each other based

on the story.

1.4 Research Significance

This research has two significances; theoritical and practical significance.

Theoritically, this research study could provide information on the issues of

Antonymy use and implementation, spesifically on such literature work like

Webtoon/comics and also could develop scientific though in analyzing use of

Antonymy in it. Practically, this research would be beneficial to the students as

this study would provide the necessary information regarding Antonymy

discourse and how it can be implemented in such a literature work like

Webtoon/comics. This study could be useful for the future researchers since it

provides baseline information on the recent status of Antonymy Study observation

and its use in literary work (Webtoon/comics).

1.5 Definition of Key Terms

According to Hamidi, key terms are something that must be clarified in the

research (2010, p. 74). As the follow-up to ease readers in understanding the

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research and to avoid misinterpret on several terms in this paper. They listed as

follow:

1. Semantics = is one of branch of linguistic that focuses in study of meaning. It

is not only learns how meaning express, but also meaning organize, the relation

and the properties of lexicon semantically.

2. Lexical Relation = One of the principle subject of Semantics which are focused

on the meaning relationship of one word to another.

3. Webtoon = A composite word of “Web‟ and “Cartoon”. A comic produced in a

digital form and can be accessed throughout all of modern devices connected

by internet connection (ex: Smartphone, Notebooks).

4. Antonymy = Words which are opposite in meaning (Saeed, 2003, p. 66).

5. Gradable Antonymy = An Antonymy type that deals with the level of words. It

means that this kind of type can be graded relatively and also have something

interceding in the middle of pair.

6. Complementary Antonymy = Antonymy type that has absolute meaning, not

relative, in which means that the opposite of a word has only one possibility

(fixed meaning). From this description as well, it can be realized that this type

has no intermediate term or meaning between the pair.

7. Relational Opposite = As the name suggests, this is the type that considered as

mutual affection. One term could not be applied without its pair/certain

condition (Not existed).

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1.6 Organization of Writing

This research paper is arranged into five chapters. Chapter I is

Introduction. It explains background of the research, statement of problem,

research objective, research sigificance, definition of the key term and

organization of writing. Chapter II is Review of Related Literature that deals with

the main and supporting theories about semantics, lexical relation, lexical relation

types, antonymy, types of antonymy and webtoon. Chapter III is Methodology,

this chapter presents research method, data, technique of collecting data, and

technique of analyzing data. Chapter IV is Findings and Discussion. This chapter

consists of data analysis about antonymy and its types in “Orange Marmalade”

Webtoon. The fifth chapter is Conclusion and Suggestion, it consists of the

conclusions of analysis and suggestion.